


In Which The Rose Starts To Wilt

by DxrlingDoll



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, Character Study, Death, Gen, Minor Character Death, One Shot, Protective Siblings, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 18:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19408558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DxrlingDoll/pseuds/DxrlingDoll
Summary: The musings of the most beloved Queen in history, moments before she meets her maker(s) and says goodbye to a world that still owes her a golden crown and an Iron Throne.





	In Which The Rose Starts To Wilt

At first, it isn't the flames that consume her.

Although she knows they'll tear her apart, disintegrating every last bit of the tender porcelain which has been hand-crafted and delicately cared for from the moment she was brought into this world, it is her mind that gets the best of her in her final moments. Or at the very least, what she can only call and comprehend as being the end of an altogether unfortunate situation. Not her life, of course, she can't exactly complain when it comes to that, not when she knows how much more she's been given in comparison to all her loyal subjects. The orphans and the beggars, the merchants and the sailors, the common people all suffering as she walks down their streets and offers nothing more than a smile in hopes of winning their adoration. It's a clever game of cat and mouse, where cat pretends to pity mouse, so it never sees her coming when she shoves it in her mouth.

A supple meal through and through; taxes collected, and debts repaid and the people still suffering all the same. This is the way the Fanatic wants her thinking, wishes to see her on her bruised knees with self-condemnation dripping from her chapped lips as her sustenance deprived stomach growls against every word she utters. A good spectacle is what she allows him to see. After all, her grandmother did not raise a fool, she was not clothed in the finest of silk-gowns and spoon-fed the sweetest of meals, only to end up wringing like a worm on a hook. Queens do not grovel or beg, but difficult times had found their way to her doorstep and the (former) Lady of Highgarden was nothing if not a darling hostess. Even if that meant playing a role she absolutely detested. It's what women did best, especially those who find themselves in such dire situations.

"She is the Queen…" She hears her brother mumble to the iron-eyed Sparrows who are currently blocking their way. It pains her to see her little brother in such a delirious state, his emerald-eyes foggy with confusion and his forehead dripping with freshly drawn crimson sacrifice. It wasn't right what they had done to him and watching them do it was every bit as painful for her as it had been their father, but she had no other choice. 

It was either join the Brotherhood of Pious Extremists or die right there and then, and she could not have that. Not Loras, not now – not after everything they'd been through, everything they'd worked so hard for. _Queen_... The word meant nothing as she stood there, pale pink fingertips digging desperately into his arm as she held him close and waited for the inevitable. Something was wrong, something was horribly wrong and there was not a thing in the world she could do to stop it from happening. She had a great number of different names for the mother-by-law, but fool was not one of them, which meant there had to be a reason she wasn't in attendance. 

The Faith Militant were not the kinds of people whose power could be so easily tested without concern for direct consequence or involuntary penance. She of all people, who they had stripped bare-naked and paraded through the streets like some kind of demonstration to all those who questioned the severity of their message, knew this better than anyone. The Fanatic, of course, didn't care for reason or logic. No, why would he bother with such things, when he had his own idea of right and wrong to preach about the alleyways and corner edges of King's Landing? His own perfect little code of morality to judge and silence the believers and the nonbelievers alike, "Let us through!"

She would've given anything in the world not to be there. Whether that meant returning to her life as Renly Baratheon's vestal bride who's bed he never shared or simply retreating into her former life as the most beloved little noble-girl in Highgarden, her grandmother doting on her all-too-often as her mother tried her best to ward off her father's well-intentioned attempts at spoiling his daughter rotten. Even as a child, with her innocuous gaze and rag doll limbs, persuasion and persistence were practically natural talents to the porcelain flower who always had a way of making him buy her any doll she liked. Her mother grew sick of her batting eyelashes and soft-spoken words very early on, but her grandmother assured her that a Queen needed such qualities if she was ever going to win the love of all her subjects. What good was any of that doing her now? 

Being loved by all wasn't enough to save her from the wrath of the Fanatic or his men when they took her and her brother by their arms and dragged them away. It wasn't enough to stop the Septas from stripping off her silk-gown and gold encrusted gems and forcing her into roughspun shift for the sake of obeying some higher power concept of chastity and man-made purification. Being adored by the lowest of lows and the highest of highs (and truth be told, everyone in-between) could not undo everything that had been done. And yet, even with that being what it was and all of this forlorn foresight blooming brightly in the back of her mind, she would've given anything just to have one more chance. One more miserable chance…

Her azure gaze spears its way through the man responsible for all of this chaos, and she wants nothing more than to see his head on a spike. It had taken everything in her power not to convince her child-husband to murder every last Fanatic that roamed the streets of their vile little city. How she was starting to regret such restraint. Seconds bleed into minutes and somehow, she knows there is no more use in fighting against the Sparrows. She cannot bear to look away from the King of Pious Clowns, for she wants her face to be the last thing he sees before he dies, but she clings to her younger brother through and through. Her grasp is tender yet fierce, wanting even now to protect him from a danger she cannot name but knows is coming all the same. Her eyes had paused momentarily before to look at their father, but she hadn't been able to handle it. 

She loved him, her grandmother called him a fool nearly every day, but he never stopped being anything other than wonderful in the eyes of his only daughter. She wants this to be over, she wants to wake up in the morning and be home again. She wants her brother safe and unscathed, she wants to feel her grandmother's arms wrapped around her, she wants her mother-by-law to be buried six feet under. But most importantly, more than anything else in the world, she still wants to be **the Queen** …

The flames come anyway.


End file.
